Samurai Souls successor Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice swings onto PC on March 22nd
You'll never see the ninja, but you'll know when.
FromSoftware's next third-person hack n' slasher - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - now has a release date for PC. Due to launch on March 22nd, 2019, Sekiro looks like a blend of some of the long-running Japanese studio's greatest hits. It's hard not to see equal inspiration taken from both Bloodborne and the Tenchu series in there, complete with grappling hooks, rooftop navigation and lots of very sharp swords. Plus a few giant monsters, of course - can't have a proper ninja game without them.
Our man Dave Irwin gave us a breakdown of everything we know about Sekiro here, but here's the abridged version: While the Tenchu series (which FromSoftware own the rights to) was its initial and key inspiration, Sekiro is set in a familiar but new world of dark Japanese mysticism. Set in the late 1500s, you play as a disgraced ninja on a rescue mission, kitted out with a multi-functional prosthetic arm that appears to feature a lot of actual bone in its construction. Grim, but kinda cool.
While there's easy Dark Souls comparisons to be drawn from the Sekiro footage shown so far, Sekiro promises to be a far more straightforward action game. There's no RPG stats, and less of a focus on loot and equipment. Fights shown so far look a lot more open, fast-paced and dynamic than anything in the Souls series, which makes a lot of sense for a ninja-themed game. It's an exciting blend of old, familiar elements mashed together into a new configuration. Sometimes, you don't need to reinvent the wheel, just use it to bash a weird mutant samurai's face in.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is due on March 22nd, 2019, to be published by Activision in the west, priced at £50/€60/$60. You can find it on Steam and its official site here.